Clinton: Markey will best represent Worcester

Saturday

Jun 15, 2013 at 10:00 AMJun 16, 2013 at 7:54 AM

By Shaun Sutner TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Professing his love for a city that has embraced him often over the decades, former President Bill Clinton, campaigning at WPI Saturday evening with Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Edward Markey, said the Malden congressman will best represent Worcester's values in Washington, D.C.

“I do love Worcester. You've been very good to me,” Mr. Clinton said from a stage at the school's Alden Hall to a crowd of about 900 energized Democrats standing in rapt attention.

“But charity begins at home and you've got to be good to yourselves,” and go out and vote and get others to vote for Mr. Markey, Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Markey is facing Republican businessman and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez in the June 25 special election.

With recent polls showing Mr. Markey ahead, but not by an insurmountable margin, Democratic activists have been mobilizing their party's core constituencies in traditionally Democratic urban centers such as Worcester.

Also appearing at the 6 p.m. campaign rally at Worcester Polytechnic Institute with Mr. Clinton and Mr. Markey were U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern of Worcester, and Worcester Mayor Joseph M. Petty.

Mr. Markey said he would fight for clean energy and gun control and against Social Security and Medicare cuts.

As for Mr. Gomez, Mr. Markey said congressional Republican leaders, from whom Mr. Gomez has tried to distance himself, “need him and want him to advance a radical Republican agenda, and we here in Massachusetts will say no.”

For the 42nd president, now 67, it was his sixth visit to Worcester, which welcomed him warmly immediately after the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1997 and where he gave a moving eulogy for the six city firefighters who died in a warehouse blaze here in 1999.

“I love this place. It's an old-fashioned place where family and community matter a lot,” he said during a 20-minute improvised speech that was vintage Clinton, complete with soaring intellectual digressions punctuated with folksy anecdotes.

The city is also “embracing diversity and building a new economy,” he said.

Mr. Clinton said Worcester suffered “the greatest heartbreak” in 1999, yet showed dignity with people around the world following the aftermath of the warehouse blaze.

Mr. Clinton acknowledged he had never met Mr. Gomez, but he said he admired his military service. However, he asserted that Mr. Gomez does not properly draw a difference between civilian and military life because of his opposition to an assault weapons ban.

Meanwhile, he praised Mr. Markey, whom he credited for a major telecommunications bill overhaul and who he said convinced him as president to put an end to buying assault weapons from China.

In the veteran congressman, “you have as well qualified a person to be U.S. Senator that has been nominated by this party in a month of Sundays,” Mr. Clinton said.

Will Ritter, a spokesman for Mr. Gomez, responded to criticism of the GOP candidate at the Worcester rally: “As election day nears and the race tightens, career politician Ed Markey and his D.C. friends are wasting their time making speeches distorting Gabriel Gomez's positions and criticizing his service to our country as a Navy SEAL.

“People want to vote for someone, not against someone, and that's why they're lining up behind Gomez,” he added.

Ms. Warren painted the special election as a stark choice between conservative Republicanism and a Democrat who will fight for working people.

“Instead of taking someone who is a shill for big oil, we could have someone out there fighting for clean energy,” she said.

Mr. McGovern said Democrats should work hard to elect one of their own party, who shares their values such as supporting social service programs for the poor and workers, “to give Elizabeth Warren a partner in the Senate.”

Mr. Clinton and the other the elected officials sounded a common theme during the hourlong rally: Democrats must vigorously organize during the last 10 days of the election to get out the vote, whether by text, email, social media or just urging their friends to vote for Mr. Markey.

The reception for Mr. Clinton — who as an ex-president has become a go-to campaign rally speaker for Democrats in tough election fights across the country — was warm.

Robert Rosenthal, of Sudbury, who traveled to Worcester in hopes of meeting Mr. Clinton, got to shake his hand.

Because Mr. Clinton was there, Mr. Rosenthal said, “I really got the feeling that Markey is going to win.”

Before Saturday's visit, Mr. Clinton campaigned in Worcester most recently, also at WPI, for Attorney General Martha Coakley's unsuccessful Senate bid in 2010.

He stumped for Mr. McGovern in the city in 2009, and campaigned here in 2006 for the ticket of Gov. Deval L. Patrick and former Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray.

Alli Knothe of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report. Contact Shaun Sutner at ssutner@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @ssutner.